Russell's occupation is Fashion Designer. He has worked in the garment industry since 1972. He has designed clothes for Levi Strauss, Janzten, Catalina, Tomboy, International Male, Balboa Sportswear, Lavon Sportswear, The GAME, and others. In the mid 90's he switched from designing to technical design and sourcing for Structure, Sears, Express, and Coldwater Creek.  He was the design director for Blair (a mail order catalog company).  He has a BFA in art from San Francisco State and has taken design courses from Otis Parson's in Los Angeles. Russell has traveled all over the world and at last count has been to over 100 different countries. He has taught fashion design classes at Woodbury University in Burbank, California and night classes in design at the Learning Tree.

Stan is now semi-retired. He received his Chemical Engineering degree from NYU when he was 19 and really had no idea what he wanted to be when he grew up. At age 30 he spent a year on a kibbutz in Israel and then lived in Vienna for awhile studying gourmet cooking. When he returned to the states he owned and operated the Fig Tree Restaurant in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky for seven years. He even had a jazz club called Stanley J's in Louisville for awhile. Stan moved to Milwaukee and managed John Byron's, a gourmet restaurant for five years. Moving right along, he settled in Columbus, Ohio and worked as an intrastate stock broker, desktop publisher and then a graphic designer and has worked in the advertising departments as a graphic designer for several companies including the Warren Times Observer.  

Both Stan and Russell have been Weight Watcher Leaders when we lived in Columbus. (But you would never guess that from looking at us now--we don't follow what we preached!)  Russell was a volunteer with the Columbus Reads program and with the local AIDS Outreach group.  When Russell lived in Los Angeles, California and Columbus, Georgia he was very involved with the local AIDS organizations; serving as community educational directors, Buddy Group leader and moderator for hospital drop-in groups. We both have done volunteer work in Sandpoint with VISTA, a reading program for grade school kids. Russell was Vice President of Sandpoint Leadership program sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. Stan has served on the board of directors of the Panida, Sandpoint's historic theater. Currently we are members of the Warren Art League and Russell is serving as Vice President.  Last Christmas Stan managed the Art League's seasonal art gallery and in May we organized a very successful art show for the Warren Art League that was held at the Warren Library.

Hobbies:  Russell is an avid collector--of everything. Stan says it should be "compulsive" instead of "avid", but we both love to shop. We have a major art collection, book collection, china collection, Harmony Kingdom collection, doll collection, stamp collection, teapot collection, pottery collection, AND rubber stamp (well over 9,000 stamps--but who's counting) collection. We love to read, cook, travel, go to theatrical events, do photography, and our arts & crafts.

Russell passions are collage, book making and art stamping. Stan primarily works in polymer clay.  We have taught rubberstamping and paper-craft workshops. Stan is in the process of developing a polymer clay workshop.  After attending ArtFest in Port Townsend, Washington, we helped organized a journal swap which was featured in RubberStampMadness magazine.  We have also have had our rubberstamping work published in Vamp Stamp News.  

In addition, we are always interested in expanding our interests--especially if it relates to our art.  We became Stampin' Up! demonstrators while living in Columbus, Ohio and when we moved to Sandpoint, Idaho we learned of a new company called Dream Impressions and became their first two-man team to sell rubberstamping products and were the top sellers for the company.  When we moved to Warren, PA we created our own line of rubber stamps and they were being sold by Cardsnstamps.com.  

We have also begun a web-base business called "TwistedPapers".  We are beginning to sell many items that will be of interest to the artist, including (but not limited to):   Vintage magazine ads, old sheet music, collage sheets, paperarts project kits, original rubber stamps, cigar boxes, vintage cases, lunch boxes, old books for altered art, old magazines for collages, craft books and magazines, original background patterns on CDs, original art from European studios and much more.  Pease bookmark: www.TwistedPapers.com and check us out often.

Lest we forget, the loves of our lives are our three dogs: our cockapoo Christopher, toy poodle Beauregard and Sammy, the most affectionate miniature poodle we ever met. We rescued Sammy from a friend.  You can check them out in our picture gallery along with many other photos we have taken.